think he will be a most usefull and thankfull man to me. So home to
supper and to bed. This being one of the coldest days, all say, they ever
felt in England; and I this day, under great apprehensions of getting an
ague from my putting a suit on that hath lain by without ayring a great
while, and I pray God it do not do me hurte.

7th. Up and to my office, where busy all the morning, and at home to
dinner. It being Shrove Tuesday, had some very good fritters. All the
afternoon and evening at the office, and at night home to supper and to
bed. This day, Sir W. Batten, who hath been sicke four or five days, is
now very bad, so as people begin to fear his death; and I am at a loss
whether it will be better for me to have him die, because he is a bad man,
or live, for fear a worse should come.

8th. Up and by coach to my Lord Peterborough's, where anon my Lord Ashly
and Sir Thomas Ingram met, and Povy about his accounts, who is one of the
most unhappy accountants that ever I knew in all my life, and one that if
I were clear in reference to my bill of L117 he should be hanged before I
would ever have to do with him, and as he understands nothing of his
business himself, so he hath not one about him that do. Here late till I
was weary, having business elsewhere, and thence home by coach, and after
dinner did several businesses and very late at my office, and so home to
supper and to bed.

9th. Up and to my office, where all the morning very busy. At noon home
to dinner, and then to my office again, where Sir William Petty come,
among other things to tell me that Mr. Barlow

[Thomas Barlow, Pepys's predecessor as Clerk of the Acts, to whom he
paid part of the salary. Barlow held the office jointly with Dennis